This is the Time
by TheManWithTheGoldenIpod
Summary: In which the author emerges from a long hiatus to start all over again. A Mark Greene-Susan Lewis story, among other things (eventually).
1. Prologue

**_Whoa, has it been a long time since I've written. But folks, when you're 20 and bouncing from a summer in Florida to a fall in California and then moving to Indiana for the Spring, certain things tend to fall by the waistside._**

**_ So I was sitting there when I decided the time had come to return to a little fantasy ER writing. But my old story threads had become so rusty I didn't feel quite ready to pull them off the shelf. So I decided to dust them away. Pretend they never happened. Oh, they're still there, you can visit them if you want. To my mind they've been discarded like old rides at Disneyland, but I didn't whipe away all evidence of their existence to make room for Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin._**

**_ Now that my disturbing aside is finished, I present to you my new story, "This is the Time". It's mainly about Mark & Susan, but all the characters from the original incarnation of the show will be getting plenty of pub. To alert you, the reader, this is going to be a long story, and I have already written a bunch of installments, but I am going to post one at a time._**

**_One last thing: 58 days until the Daily Show: InDecision 2004 comes to DVD. To honor the comedic genius of Jon Stewart and his ability to identify just how full of s&t everybody in politics is, a Daily Show Moment of Zen will precede every chapter of this story._**

**_Enjoy. Reviews, comments, a complete list of 95 Theses, death threats, etc. are welcome._**

**TODAY'S MOMENT OF ZEN:****  
**

_George W. Bush_: American's will not be intimidated, or influenced, by an enemy of our country. _Jon Stewart_: Strong words. Senator Kerry, you're turn. _John Kerry_: As Americans, we are absolutely united in our determination to hunt down and destory Osama bin Laden and the terrorists. Jon _Stewart_: Ah - so he saw Bush's "we will not be intimidated" and raised him a "determination to hunt down and destroy"! Not to be out-talked, Bush then promised to smack bin Laden so hard, his momma would feel it.

**And now on to the story. It begins on a cold morning in Chicago, IL, during the last scene of "Love's Labour Lost"...**

**

* * *

**

* * *

The bitter Chicago cold was whipping against them as they ascended to the El platform. Mark held his shoulders low, head tucked in under his hood. Susan couldn't bear to see him like this. 

_It was not his fault_. It was a one-in-a-billion chain of events marked by the most haphazard priority management she'd ever seen out of OB. Not once but twice he had actually sent people up there with direct orders to drag somebody down – they could not have been so overflooded as to have nobody around. And yet he had been so gung-ho…

No. Not going there. _Nobody else is allowed to blame him_, Susan told herself. He's doing it enough on his own.

Finally she spoke up, "C'mon, it's early, lemme buy you breakfast."

Mark barely mumbled a reply, "Uh, not hungry."

"C'mon, I know a nice place. It's just two El stops the other way."

"I gotta get home."

"C'mon, not only does Shorties have the greasiest eggs in town, stuff falls from the ceiling every time the El goes by."

"Sounds attractive, Susan, I just got a lot of stuff I got to do."

This was the least convincing, most depressing state she had ever seen her friend in. In a way it surprised her that she was allowing herself to care so much about…her thoughts trailed for a moment. _…about a married man_.

"Are you sure you're okay?" She prayed for honesty.

"I'm fine," he lied through his teeth as he backed towards the train, "Scout's honor."

"Is Jen home?" She was asking out of some vain, misplaced belief that her presence would in someway be comforting to him. Jen didn't understand what they did, few people did. It was why doctors often married each other or had nine ex-spouses. Finding the kind of person who would really be able to understand the answers to the normal "How was your day" questions was not easy.

_Mark was one of those people who understood everything_, she thought as she stood on the platform, watching him grab the last seat in the last car on the train as it began to screech its way out of the station. _He was a shoulder to cry on, a brain to pick, even a man who would be great to come home to._

Now she had to sit down. What had just come over her? Why was she suddenly thinking these thoughts?

It wasn't like there was _nothing_ there. That night at the skating rink…those countless late-night snacks breaking into the cafeteria…and that moment three and a half weeks ago. February 5. Their eyes had locked with each other that night, Mark visibly shaken in the wake of the hospice women. She had to fight off the impulse to reach in and kiss him.

_Kiss him_? Now she grabbed her head, fearing she was thinking too hard. What was going on with her? She couldn't understand how her feelings had turned around on her so quickly.

Her and Mark Greene? It would be like dating a brother…or would it? But what if…

_STOP!_ She told herself. _You can't unravel because you see a man in a moment of weakiness and revert to the stereotypical role of rebound female_.

But something was pulling her now. Pulling her head up to see the next train rolling to a stop. Pulling her on board. Pulling her…towards what?

**To be continued...**


	2. Mistakes

**Daily Show on DVD Countdown: 51 days**

**Moment of Zen**

_Jon Stewart_: Both candidates also tried to shore up their support amongst male votes and female voters. Let's see if you can guess which group they're trying for here…  
_John Kerry_: And if we have to get tough with Iran, we _will_ get tough…_  
George W. Bush_: …We must never waver in the face of this threat…_  
John Kerry_: ...I'm a hunting, I'm a gun owner…_  
George W. Bush_: …this is a global conflict, that requires firm resolve!..._  
John Kerry_: …I will hunt them down, and we'll kill them._  
Jon Stewart_: Hm….I…I _think_ they're going for dudes.

* * *

"Next stop, Cicero Station. Next stop…" the intercom droned on in the morning air. Susan sat on the EL considering her options. Cicero was four blocks from Mark's house.

Now was when she felt her senses slowly returning to her. Normally she'd have gone home, stumbled through that ridiculously messy hole towards her couch and just crashed until the start of another wonderful shift that evening. But this last shift had been anything but normal. They all knew it. And now she was…she wasn't sure.

And then the train doors were open and she was walking out and down the platform, still figuring out what she was doing and where she was going and what she would do when she got there.

All of sudden, without a real clue about how or far more importantly why, she was knocking on the door of Mark's house…no answer. She knocked again…and nothing.

Against her better judgment, she reached for the doorknob, and it clicked over. Sticking her head over the threshold but staying out on the front step, she called out, "Mark?"

* * *

The brewing hum of a coffee maker could be heard in the kitchen. Susan slowly and methodically opened the door and began walking towards it.

Mark was there, sitting at the table turning pages in a photo album. He was oblivious to the world, lost in his thoughts of self-punishment. _How could he have let this happen_? _What sort of deranged crime had he committed to provoke these last 48 hours_?

He came home after another less-than-perfect shift, hopeful that maybe his dilemma had been solved only to hear Jen say she was leaving him. Then he was back on the next morning at 6 A.M. to have a junkie thrown at him from a moving car…and then this. This awful, awful, awful thing.

He could not stop seeing Mr. O'Brien's face in his head. He saw it staring back at him when he had finished cleaning Jodi shortly after. He even had seen it while Carter tried to tell him he was a hero. _Heroes generally don't kill innocent mothers_, he had wanted to say.

Most of all, he had seen in the whole train ride home. And he was staring at the pictures now, pictures of happier times, him and Jen and Rachel, on her first day home from the hospital, the Christening, the Brookfield Zoo, the Shedd…happier times.

Then he looked up and saw _Susan_'s face, standing in his kitchen.

"Are you OK, Mark?" It seemed like only semi-appropriate question.

Mark exhaled and looked down, then collected himself, "Really, Susan, I'm fine."

She knew he was lying. He knew he was lying. What can you possibly say in a situation like this?

"You don't look OK."

"It was a long day at the office", Mark deadpanned.

"I'll bet…" Susan's mind wandered. She still hadn't quite grasped in her own mind what she was hoping to accomplish here, but she had to think on her feet. "OK, you won't come out to breakfast, I'll make you breakfast."

She tried to say it as cheerfully and forcefully as possible, like her mom used to do when she would force her and Chloe to swallow her cooking in the mornings before school.

Mark chuckled instantly at Susan's joking, but then he saw her pulling off her scarf and setting down her quote and squeezing past him into the kitchen area. What was she…_hey_, Mark thought_, those are my pots and pans_!

* * *

Susan was rummaging, finally pulling out a large black skillet and setting it on the stove. Mark literally could not speak. This was too…bizarre. Susan was actually in his kitchen, heating up his stove and now…opening his fridge and preparing his food.

Mark couldn't really decide what was weirder – the fact that this was happening or the fact that he didn't mind at all. He liked the image, actually.

That's when he had to catch himself and all of a sudden make the ring of his left finger seem very, very heavy.

Fifteen minutes later Susan was fast and work scrambling eggs and was waiting on the toaster when Mark finally said something.

"That smells really good." He managed weakly.

Susan had her back to him but smiled and replied, "I just hope it tastes good. I haven't really cooked in a long time."

"I don't think I have the good kind of eggs like the cafeteria does."

"_That's _where we should have gone, that way you could be doing the cooking for me!" Susan joked.

Finally seeming to sense a diffusion of the awkwardness, Mark got up out of his chair.

"Aw, come on Susan, the whole housewife thing, you'll be a natural."

That made the hair stand up on Susan's back. She closed her eyes for a second and then forced a happy face before turning to meet him – "Excuse me?"

"Well"…Mark was beginning to feel very sheepish. "Ya know, on those…._rare_ occasions when you decide to cook breakfast for you and your husband."

"Oh, and since when does a doctor have time to find a husband?" Susan teased. Mark just stared off into space for a second and then met her level in the eyes. "You're gonna have to beat them away with a stick. Just don't settle for the first one who wants to run away, be selective."

He was so earnest, so unassuming, it was making her heart melt. She turned her head back to the table and deflected his attention.

"What are you looking at here?" She walked over and sat down as Mark stood. "Oh, ya know, photo album of Rachel…first day home, things like that."

* * *

Susan began leafing through the plastic sheeted pages. She had actually never seen some of the earliest Rachel baby photos, other than what Mark kept in his wallet. They were adorable – Mark holding Rachel in those little baby back-packs, the two of them playing with dolls, Rachel about one-year old holding a stethoscope and playing doctor to Mark in bed. A picture of Mark, Jen, and little Rachel on a beach…the perfect family. It seemed to good to be true and Susan knew in reality it was.

"This is too much…oh God, you have a full head of hair in this one!" Susan was laughing while Mark tried hard not to smile. "What, were you look 17 when you started losing it?"

"Ha ha ha, it's a proven fact that what men lack in hair they make up for in style. Some of the smoothest men alive have been bald. In fact, name one guy with so-called 'perfect hair' who you would want to date."

Susan playfully "thought" for a second before gushing in a falsetto teenage voice, "Tom Cruise." Mark sighed and looked back down at the album.

"That's me on her first day of preschool…and that's her showing her class what I do", as he pointed out a photo of Mark, sitting on a tiny chair in front of a dozen children while Rachel smacked his knee with the rubber hammer. The page turned and Mark slowed again.

It was Jen, holding their newborn daughter, glowing and being flanked by her mother and father, who had come dressed for the occasion in full clerical garb. He was seeing her now, stretched on that gurney. It had seemed so simple, so correctable, and he wanted so desperately to be in control that he had done something terrible. He just stared, stared into space for a long time.

Susan could tell what was wrong, could see him burning a hole in the page with his eyes. She seized the opportunity: "It was _not_ your fault Mark. You know that, right?"

Silence, and finally a muted. "Yeah".

"Do you believe it?"

Quickly and scornfully, Mark said, "No." Now Susan got up to look at him face to face.

"Mark, don't you see, if it weren't for you that man would be preparing for two funerals. You saved his son! We all lose patients we think should've been saved. It's not your fault." She wondered if he was hearing any of this, if she should even be saying it in the first place. Maybe arriving here unannounced was a mistake. He was certainly acting like a man who wanted his space.

"Ya know," Mark thumbed the picture of Jen in the album again, tracing a circle around tiny Rachel, "when she was born, and I held her in my hands for the first time…I realized how true it was. Kids. They change _everything_. How you think, how you dress, your sense of right and wrong and worthy and unworthy. You realize you're not capable of loving anything as much as your own child..." His lip was quivering now.

"And that mother should be holding her son right now. Her husband should be calling their parents with the greatest joy of life. Instead they'll get the news they want AND the news they most fear. And it's because of me. I took away…I took away parenthood."

Susan did not want to see him cry, because she knew she wanted to and if she saw tears in his eyes she'd be powerless to hold them out of her own.

"It was a mistake," she tried to annunciate the words, make him see what they all saw. "You did the best you could. And you have to let that be enough."

"That's not gonna be enough for her husband. Little boy gets older, starts asking why he never has a mom like all the other kids, Dad's supposed to say, "The doctor did the best he could?"

Susan was starting to sense that something else was eating away at him, not distracting him from Mrs. O'Brien but actually making her more present. She had a good idea what it was.

"Where's Jen?"

Mark bitterly spat out, without pause, "She left……for Milwaukee. Coming back in a few weeks." It was an awkward recovery, Mark thought.

Susan was angry at Jen for making him feel like he deserved to punished, angry at the world for exerting a horrific chain of events on him and him alone. Istinctively, she reached her hand out and brushed it against his cheek, trying to let him know somebody cared.

"You are the best man I've ever worked with…" She wanted to continue, but her eyes simply drifted into his eyes and they stared at each other, for an instant and onward, like they had hours before in the ER.

Susan leaned her head in ever so slightly, to take the next step in her mind, and then _SMACK._ The reality, of where she was and what she was doing and who she was with slammed into her, and she never felt more embarrassed in all her life.

Mark was floating, still half in the past, still sitting on that rocking chair in the Nursery as he tried to explain to a sobbing Mr. O'Brien what had gone wrong. And then he realized he was with Susan and she was…and then everything snapped back for him too.

Now it felt really awkward and Susan's face was flush with red as she hurriedly reached for her coat and bag.

"Oh, God, Mark…I, I really have to go. I'm sorry to leave you in a…" She clumsily tried to properly dress as she bolted for the door, Mark a three steps behind.

"I'll just….ya know…I'll see ya at work. Sometime…this week!" She zipped through the barely open door and slammed it shut on the other side, cursing herself for trying to do something like _that_ at a time like _this_.

Mark, meanwhile, stood stunned in the hallway staring towards the door. Did what he think just happened happen? And if it had…

"Oh boy, Oh boy…Oh boy." He mumbled to himself.

* * *

**To Be Contined…**


	3. Mystery Date

**Daily Show on DVD Countdown: 50 days  
**

**Moment of Zen**

_Jon Stewart_: I'm sorry…did you say "pride" in the clear loss?  
_Rob Corrdry_: Oh yes, Jon. Four years ago there was a palpable sense of anger. A sense the election had been stolen. Democrats swore that _this_ election would not be decided by the Supreme Court. And thanks to their clever strategy of incoherent campaign themes, an uncomfortable Vietnam fetish, and an undying belief in the get-out-the-vote power of Ashton Kutcher and Bon Jovi, it won't be. Yeah, suck on that Scalia!

* * *

Mark was dumbfounded. Had Susan just…_no, no_. _It couldn't have been, it was just the two of them being hyper-emotional and there was nothing more to it than that_. He began to get a whiff of…_Oh Jesus_, Mark thought as he sprinted back to the kitchen. 

Sure enough, Susan's half-finished cooking was about to set his stove on fire. He quickly turned the knobs off and nudged the sizzling pan into the sink to cool itself off, tiptoeing slowly back to the table. He needed to very much sit down and collect his thoughts.

What precisely had this little moment meant? It was also not the first one. He thought back a few weeks ago, when she had basically tricked him in to helping her avoid Kayson. The comments were fresh in his head: "Mark, he's married." "Yeah, well so am I!" He meant it purely in a playful manner, but for a split second he thought he had seen disappointment cross Susan's face when he said it.

There was that very awkward silence on the night that woman from the hospice died. And of course there were Doug's constant proddings…_Are you telling me you've never thought about it with Susan_?

Of course he had thought about it. Susan was a beautiful and smart woman and way more deserving than the usual assortment of dorks and punks. He was only human to _think_ about it with Susan, provoked because he seemed to sense signals that she thought about it with him. But like he had told Doug once, never in a million years would he act on it. He was loyal to a fault; his marriage might not be a perfect one but he needed to save it. He had taken an oath no less serious than the Hippocratic one.

Besides, even if all the circumstances were right, what could he have that Susan would possibly want?

* * *

Susan burst threw the door of her apartment and threw her bag against the window, clanging several objects off the sill and tearing a hole in the drapes, and then she began to vocally berate herself. 

"What the hell just happened? What were you thinking?" She paced back and forth, trying to reassemble how she had been brought to that moment when she had thrown not only caution but insanity to the wind.

"It was the lowest form of…" She couldn't even think of an adjective to appropriately hurt her own feelings.

_God, feelings is what got me into this mess_. She thought she had buried this a long time ago, her thoughts about Mark. Now they were suddenly rushing in on her. And then in a moment of extreme weakness on both accounts she had tried to take advantage of a very fragile man and…

"I'll never be able to go to work again!" Susan cried as she fell face first on her couch.

* * *

**SATURDAY NIGHT**

Mark wandered around for the next three days in a haze, avoiding people, snapping at patients, and being a general malcontent. But his interactions with Susan were on the verge of frozen – they never talked unless it was for a patient, never made eye contact until necessary. Mark avoided the lounge if he saw her in there and Susan made a conscious effort to always arrive and leave well before he did.

The fourth night, Saturday, a full moon, saw Mark on the night shift. He was as moody as ever and the whole ER had noticed and the whole ER had suffered.

She was walking to check on a probable hernia when she saw him, standing in the Trauma Room One, looking mournfully at the gurney, scanning the walls, like a slowly unraveling man in a mental ward.

"You've got patients waiting" she stated as she pushed the doors open.

"I know", he said, sounding like he was in a trance.

She decided enough was enough and walked forward to face him.

"Are you gonna stand here all night?"

He didn't even attempt to make eye contact with her. "I dunno…"

"Are you OK?" She was starting to become aware of how often she'd been asking that question. Maybe the asking was the problem.

He replied softly, "Just can't stop thinking about it."

She was desperate to try and repair some of the damage she had no doubt piled on to. So she did some more thinking on her feet: "Maybe you should take some time off. Take tonight off, I'll get someone to cover for you. If we get in trouble I'll page you."

Mark didn't seem to register her offer at first, rubbing his chin and still lost in his thoughts. Then he finally turned to look her in the eye. "OK…ok." He walked away, leaving Susan in Trauma One to be conflicted by _her_ thoughts.

* * *

"OK", a cheerful Doug Ross addressed the Admitting Desk, "What's my bid for the Saturday Night Special? Jilted boyfriend on PCP…Twenty-two years old. Six foot _eight_. Comes strapped to his own gurney!"

Mark seemed to mumble something as he flung signed charts around the desk, so Doug of course assumed he was volunteering.

"Going once! Going twice…SOLD to the doctor, in the pale _green_ scrubs!" Doug smiled as he reached for a marker when he heard Mark get agitated.

"Doug, I said I'm going home…Susan, you take it." And with that, Mark very curtly left the ER.

Doug turned to Susan, "He still upset?"

Susan sighed. "Still…can I ask you something?"

"Shoot."

"Do you think Mark would ever cheat on his wife?" Doug's ears perked up and he quickly had to mask the feeling of suspicion that had just washed over him.

"What, you think we need to get him a hooker?"

"No…I mean, well…" Susan was skating onto delicately thin ice in discussing this topic with Doug Ross, number one gossip king of County General. She tried to neutralize it as much as possible, "I just mean, if a man in a dark emotional place were…given the chance to seek…" Now she was lost.

"Comfort?" Doug filled in the blank and was now trying to read Susan's mind. Was something else going on that he didn't know about?

"Yeah, exactly…would, would Mark ever do something like that?" Doug noticed Susan was fiddling with her hands, like a teenager who was trying to get information "for a friend". He looked up and then down and then launched his best missile:

"Mark got married before he left college to a woman he met before he _started_ college. He also apparently never minds that said wife chooses to spend 75 percent of her time two hours away with his daughter while working with a very handsome and very single man named Craig. So no, I do not think adultery has ever entered into the mind of Mark Greene, M.D."

Doug recalled a conversation he and Mark had a few months ago, playing catch with gauze rolls in the hallway. He was aware of the topic then and its connection to who he was speaking with now. More to the point, he was not blind; he saw the occasional asides and the friendly chit-chats, as did numerous other people. But was it possible that something else was actually going on between the Chief Resident and one of his charges?

Susan digested his speech and awkwardly picked up a chart. She scanned the room for something to distract her and saw Carter attempting to "steer" an incredibly drunk man into an exam room. He was rescued by Carol, and Susan was there to scoop up her extra hand.

"Hey, you're shift over yet?"

Meanwhile, Doug threw on his coat and braced for the cold. He turned to see Susan reeling in Carter for what certainly seemed like an interesting night in the ER. _I just hope Malik got those restraints tight on Stretch Armstrong_, Doug thought as he exited. And while his primary attention was spending a romantic evening with Diane, he now had a new mystery to explore: What _exactly_ was the relationship between Mark Greene and Susan Lewis?

**TO BE CONTINUED**


	4. Concentration

**Daily Show on DVD Countdown: 47 days**

**Moment of Zen**

_Jon Stewart_: And off the top of the show, there was a story came out in the press yesterday that I found very intriguing…about the President's iPod. The President has an iPod…and, uh, I….I don't believe the President should have an iPod, quite frankly. I'm sorry, I don't like the idea of the President sitting at a computer…_downloading songs_.

* * *

**  
SUNDAY, 2:28 AM**

Even for a night shift, the ER seemed bizarrely quieted to Doug as he walked down the hallway. There was no mass fire, gang shootout, train wreck, or any other natural disaster barging through the doors, so why had he been paged?

Finally he found some doctors…actually, all the doctors, including Benton and Susan, huddled by the admit desk with their heads hung low.

A tall, thin, but very chiseled man with a goatee and a flannel t-shirt was sitting in one of the waiting chairs and peered over his bifocals to look at Doug, who was still thoroughly confused. "29 minutes and 32 seconds," he gruffed.

"I beat you", Benton mused. Doug felt he was still dreaming, and having a nightmare to boot. "What's going on, where's the victims?" Peter motioned to the assembled team of ER residents, "You're looking at 'em."

Just then Susan appeared with…_Oh God_, Doug moaned in his mind. _Briefing manuals_. She confirmed his worst fear: "Everybody, I'd like to introduce Dr – "William Swift, your new chief", the man in the plaid finished for her. "Which one of you is Chief Resident?"

Doug looked over and saw Susan pensively shrugging her shoulders and making an obvious lie. "We haven't been able to locate Dr. Greene yet", and Doug's suspicion that Susan was hiding something mounted.

"I find these drills ideal for meeting my team, and assessing how quickly the residents can mobilize," Swift began to monologue as he led his lambs down Trauma One. "Now, seeing as I have you here, I'd like to take a few moments to go over the basics of ER management."

Like the rebellious kid in the back of the class, Doug muttered under his breath, "It's 2:30 AM". Swift appeared to have the ears to match his punctuality: "Don't worry, I'll have you home by four."

* * *

This whole evening had felt very wrong to Mark, and when he finally answered the ninth page his worst fears seem to be justified. The new boss' introduction to him would be waltzing in after ditching a shift with no plausible reason. Then he'd spent all his money on Mortal Kombat and Killer Instinct. Then he'd talked to Jen earlier that day and she said she was coming back to town the next morning to discuss how many weekends he could spend with Rachel. And then there'd been Susan…he hadn't even had time to worry about that. 

So when Haleh told him he had managed to be a stunning hour and 47 minutes late, he felt like he had completely hit rock bottom. He paused for the briefest of seconds to compose himself and begin the long road towards retrieving his status within the ER.

Rounding the corner he saw the staff assembled on chairs in front of a blackboard, with whoever was little the leader seminar appearing to give his farewell. The other doctors began to file out past Mark as he pushed his way up, when the white coat at the board turned around to show the face attached to it.

**_Now_ **_I have completely hit rock bottom_, as Mark came eyeball to eyeball with the yo-yo from Doc Magoo's earlier. "Ah, Dr. Bagel, come right in."

Benton and Doug were finding it hard not to smile at Mark as they exited. "Man, you're in trouble, Wild Willie's on a tear."

"Wild Willy?" Mark turned again to introduce himself properly, "Hi, Mark Greene." _This must be him,_ Mark thought, _and man, does he look like he's about to enjoy this_.

"Yeah, I've heard – William Swift, your new chief. How's the flu?"

Out of the corner of his eye, Mark swore he could see a panicked Susan trying to tell him something using pictionary gestures. He fumbled the rest of his brief meeting with the new boss.

A few minutes later, Doug caught Mark after he'd just been given the cold shoulder by Swift. He asked the rhetorical, "How'd it go?"

"I think I blew it with the new chief."

"Nah, let's just say you didn't make a strong first impression. You have to stay?"

"Nope, he sent me home."

"OK, let's get out of here before he changes his mind."

* * *

Carol trudged back down to admitting to find Susan. "Anybody going into the suture room, might want to bring some garlic." 

Susan had her head buried in a chart but was quick on the draw, "Garlic is for vampires, werewolves get killed by gold bullets."

"_Silver _bullets, God!" Jerry corrected. They both stared at him and then went back to work.

"How's Mark?" Carol asked nonchalantly.

"Still flogging himself over that OB case. How's Tag?"

"I think Billy Idol is gonna wind up playing my wedding."

They both laughed. It had already been a long night and there were still four hours left in the shift.

"You getting excited?"

Carol sighed, "I'll be excited when it's _over_. I mean, being able to be with somebody shouldn't be this complicated - we shouldn't have to jump through 12 hoops and pass the _Redbook_ litmus test in order to be considered happy. Now I know why Doug said Mark and Jen would never work."

Susan had to choke down that last sentence and not give Carol the slightest indication that anything was amiss. "What do you mean?"

"I don't even remember, Doug used to talk about it all the time when we were together, all the things he saw between Mark and Jen. Probably did it to convince himself life as an uncommitted philanderer was somehow noble."

Carol grabbed another chart and moved on without paying the matter another moment's notice. Susan rubbed her temples and then stared at the clock, wondering how she could possibly go back to concentrating on things not involving Mark Greene…

* * *

…who was mentally a million miles from Chicago at that same moment, sharing an El ride home with Doug. 

The silence had been eerie to Doug's mind, as it became clear he was going to have to speak first.

"So, Mark, what do you think about Wild Willy?"

Mark was completely oblivious. "I don't know."

"Probably gonna make us do push-ups before every shift."

"Yeah…"

"Think he'll take Morganstern's recommendation and make you attending?"

"Yuh…"

Doug was growing amused, pissed, and bothered at the same time. Something would have to snap him out of it: "You know, I hear he's promoting Carter to Chief of Surgery."

Now Mark didn't offer up a courtesy reply. Just heavily-lidded eyes staring into the vast emptiness of a Chicago night.

"You getting any sleep at all?...Mark!"

"What?"

Finally, he seemed to have his friend's attention. "Nothing, you just didn't hear anything I was saying."

Mark knew it was true. The last minutes, hours, days, all seemed like blank time in his mind. He couldn't piece together what he was doing or why it mattered if he did. Doug could tell Mark needed more than just friendly advice, but it was all he had to give.

"Listen, you gotta let this OB case go. Could've happened to any one of us."

Now he knew he had Mark's attention because he sat down and stared right back at him. "If you killed a patient, you wouldn't be upset?"

"You didn't kill her Mark, you did everything you could to save her."

"Tell that to her husband…A year from now, that little boy'll be taking his first step, and his mother won't be there. His mother will never be there."

"It's not your fault Mark."

Now Mark was on a roll: "Everybody keeps saying that, you, Carol, Carter, Haleh, even Benton, Susan, who also came on to me, I don't know if I mentioned that, and why does it not…."

Mark kept rambling for a few minutes but Doug had lost the ability to hear. _Did he say that Susan had come on to him_? _Clearly, this situation has become more complicated._

"You have to go back Mark, cause I think I'm coming down with something. Could've sworn that you just said Susan came on to you."

Mark's eyes grew wide as baseballs. "Oh God, did I say that out loud?"

Now Doug couldn't keep a smile off his face. "Yes, yes you did. Now why did you say it?"

Mark began a very meager attempt at a retreat, "Uh, well, it _might_ have happened, I'm not real sure."

"Well, that seems to me to be a pretty binary situation, either she did or she didn't."

"It was…I don't know, it was the morning after the O'Brien case, emotions were running high, things were said…"

Doug cut him off, "And then Susan came on to you."

"I'm married."

Doug scoffed and spoke without carefully choosing his words, "And a bang-up job you've been doing on that at the moment."

Mark's eyes sank even lower, and Doug knew he'd cut into what should have been off-limits. "…That was a low blow. I'm sorry."

Mark had a terrible urge to get out of the conversation. It was too much salt in an open wound. He could feel the train slowing down and abruptly announced, "My stop."

Doug of course could tell it wasn't Mark's stop and followed him to the doors. "Listen, why don't you come over to my place, we'll talk."

Mark was still hurt and confused, not just by Doug, and was not in the mood to talk to anybody. "Oh yeah? What for?"

The doors hissed their way open and Mark stepped out on the platform, cold and worn down and alone.

The doors pulled closed and Doug Ross was left watching out onto the platform, staring at his friend. The information was slowly piecing itself together in his head, but he still wasn't sure. _Concentrate_, he told himself.

**To Be Continued…**


	5. Scrabble

**_Author's Note_: Apologies for the delay. I wrote the first four chapters all together and now needed to reassemble my thoughts. This installment is sort of a bridge to get into the next act of the story. A longer chapter with far more activity is coming on Thursday.**

**Daily Show on DVD Countdown**: 35 days

**Moment of Zen**

_Jon Stewart_: Stephen, I have to ask you, what did you make of this speech?  
_Stephen Colbert_: Jon, Zell Miller's bitter, angry tirade showed the Democratic Attack Machine at its worst. He revealed the face of a Democratic Party that consists of ideological radicals far, FAR outside the mainstream. And if you ask me, the American people are sick of the Democrats' outrageous politics of personal destruction._  
Jon Stewart_: But..uh, he's a Democrat in name only, he was on the floor of the Republican National Convention, and his attacks were directed AT the Democrats._  
Stephen Colbert_: Jon, if you're just gonna parrot liberal media 'talking points'…"Polly don't want that cracker".

* * *

Mark sat on the bench at the El stop, alone with his thoughts and exposed to the cold. He knew he should be getting home, at least get back on the train as it rolled through every nine minutes, but he was too worn-down by life to care. 

An hour went by, nearly two; the sun was slowly creeping its way over the horizon when he heard his name being called.

"Mark!"

He turned and looked over, a little surprised and hardly in the mood to talk to this person.

"What are you doing here, Doug?"

"Came back to see you. You know your house is about 5 miles in the other direction, right?"

"You want to give me directions, I think you also need to point out street signs," Mark said as he resumed staring off into the distance.

Doug frowned. He'd only gotten to spend a little more time with Diane before being shooed out of the apartment, and his first instinct was to get some sleep, but something told him Mark was not going to bother getting back on the El. He hated watching his best friend circle the drain like this.

"How long you think you can do this to yourself?" Doug asked as he took a seat on the bench.

"I dunno…I was wondering why I ever bothered to become a doctor. What I was thinking I would prove. And here I am, alone on an El platform with a broken family and a dead career."

Doug tried to measure out a response to this. "It might be an old cliché, but you can't carry the weight of the world on your shoulders."

Mark stifled a laugh and then confessed, "Jen came to see me the other day, told me she's leaving."

"Keeping that job in Milwaukee for another year?"

Mark rolled his head towards Doug and cast a look of disbelief. "Me. She's leaving me. Hell of a thing, how this works, right? When it rains…"

Doug sighed and looked at his breath evaporate in a chilly Sunday morning. He was contemplating telling Mark the truth, telling him all the things he'd kept to himself.

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. Remember, things like this, nobody's fault." The words came out of Mark's mouth tainted with anger, and Doug knew what needed to be said next.

"You talk about Jennifer, I was just thinking about your first day as a med student," and as the little soliloquy began, Doug realized how long it had actually been - six years. It had begun to seem like a very long time, decades, a time when they were both very different people.

Mark seemed to be getting nostalgic too, commenting, "When I dropped a tray full of cultures in the lap of one of the lab techs and then had to bring him coffee every day for a month?" They laughed, but Doug kept going.

"No, I was thinking about how the day ended. We had just met, I was single, I was unattached, and you said, 'Hey, come have dinner with me and my wife.' Seemed very odd for a third-year med student to be married. So we go over to Doc Magoo's and Jen is waiting in one of the booths, you say you have to go to the bathroom. And as we are waiting, I very innocently ask your wife what she does."

"Is there a point to this story?" Mark asked impatiently.

"Yeah, because she answers, 'Oh, I'm just letting Mark finish med school, then I'm getting a law degree. He doesn't really know what he wants to do, but I hope he figures it out.'"

Doug glanced over to try for a read on Mark's reaction. "She never loved you, Mark. I'm not sure she ever even _liked_ you. She thinks your desire to be an ER doctor is like driving a cab, something you do to pay bills until a "real" job comes along."

Mark sat, both the air and his heart feeling very cold, mad because of what Doug had said and madder because it was true.

Doug looked at him quickly, then back to the horizon, before speaking again. "You've got lots of friends Mark, people who want to help you get past this and get back to being the best doctor in that ER. But you have to let us help you, and right now all you want to do is turn your back on us…Whatever you do, it's your decision."

Mark exhaled, watching his breath evaporate into the air after what seemed like a long stretch of being breathless.

"I don't know Doug…for the first time in my life, I feel lost." Mark stared at his lap, fidgeting with his thumbs.

Doug rose from the bench and stomped his feet, a vain attempt to pump some warmth through himself.

"Well, just keep one thing in mind: it's still your choice. The next time Jen tries to make you hate yourself for loving what you do and the people you do it with, remember that. It will always be your choice."

Mark smiled, still staring down his jacket, and playfully asked, "When did you become such a fountain of insight?"

Doug smirked as he began to walk towards the exit. "Dunno. It's like a nervous tick, comes and goes without warning or explanation."

"Where you going now?"

"I dunno, go back to the hospital, find some kids who can kick my ass at Scrabble," Doug joked as he trudged off the platform. Mark heard the rusty gate creak as his friend left.

Now he sat there, alone on the bench, contemplating the choices of his past and the possibilities of his future.

* * *

**To Be Continued...  
**


	6. Charades

**Daily Show on DVD Countdown: 32 days**

**Moment of Zen**

_Jon Stewart_: Reclusive filmmaker Osama bin Laden's much-anticipated "October Surprise": his first new video in 18 months. Bin Laden refrained from endorsing Bush or Kerry, though he said of Bush's conduct on 9/11, "He was more interested in listening to the child's story about the goat than worry about what was happening to the towers." First of all, F&K BIN LADEN. Second of all, that 'My Pet Goat' reference suggest bin Laden had screened Michael Moore's _Fahrenheit 9/11_. Bin Laden then upped the pop culture ante by noting, "I'm Rick James, bitch!"...Apparently he just sits around watching TV...I really don't like that man.

* * *

Every time Mark and Susan passed each other in the hallway was an adventure. It seemed like during the last three weeks, they seemed to be finding ways to bump into each other, or even run each other over. And yet for all the contact they'd been experiencing, there was an icy distance between them. 

The toughest part for both of them is how little it seemed to be interfering. Susan felt like this was something which would be pounding in her head and blaring a siren throughout the workplace. It shocked both of them that they seemed to compartmentalize so well.

And with Mark handling Jen, Susan handling Chloe, and a full docket of emergencies to handle both of them, there simply wasn't time for any heart-to-hearts. At least not yet.

With springtime came the rain, beating down one night as Mark hustled into the Admit Desk and flagged down Doug.

"So listen, this woman, came in with the dog bite, I _think_ she was hitting on me."

Doug chuckled, "That's been known to happen."

"Not to me!" Mark protested.

Doug smirked and decided the best approach was the scientific method. "She smile at you?"

"Yes", Mark droned.

"Play with her hair?"

"Uh-huh."

"Touch you?"

"On my arm."

"She was hitting on you."

Mark rolled his eyes and Doug once again had to fight off the impulse to laugh hysterically.

"Geez, I hope I'm not sending out a signal or something…" Mark moaned as they continued to walk down the hallway. "Ya know, me and Jen…"

Doug cut his buddy off, "Well, you're moody right now and women like to _save_ moody men."

As if on cue, "MARK!" Susan yelled out. "GSW to the chest." As she hurriedly handed Mark a gown and led him down to Trauma Two, Mark turned back to Doug, who raised his eyebrows and cocked his head; as if to say, _See what I mean_?

* * *

15 minutes later, Mark was pacing in the lounge, collecting his thoughts. He felt somewhat silly, since he'd have the whole train ride to reanalyze everything he was planning to say. How had his marriage crumbled on him so fast? It didn't seem like all that long ago that they had been happy newlyweds. 

Mark was snapped out of his romanticism by Jerry: "Dr. Greene, you got time to follow up on that back pain in 3?"

"Yeah", Mark said as he threw on his coat.

Susan was fiddling with her notepad, jotting down orders in her head and praying Chloe had set the apartment on fire. She looked up at the sound of the lounge door opening and saw Mark walking back down the hall with a chart in his hands.

"Where are you going?"

"Just one last check-in, patient in 3."

Susan grabbed his wrist. "No, you've gotta make the train. 7:30 to Milwaukee, remember?"

Mark stared at her for a moment, his mind wandering. "Yeah…I…you're right, I gotta get going."

He turned himself around and left the chart in the rack outside curtain 3.

"You think this is a mistake?"

Susan shook her head. "So Swift is a tight-ass, big deal. You don't make attending that's one thing, you screw up your marriage that's something else."

"Sometimes I think it was screwed a long time ago."

"Don't say that."

"It's what everybody else around here thinks, right?"

* * *

They both stopped. 

Susan wanted to tell him something, anything, that would sound true. She certainly didn't want to tell him what she felt was true.

"Well, ya know, people talk…"

She saw Mark droop his head.

"But nobody's doubting you, Mark. You're a great father, you're a great husband, and a great doctor. The trifecta."

As soon as she stopped speaking, Susan realized how informal her words were becoming. How the 'concerned colleague' approach was slowly filtering out of her and being replaced by...she couldn't quite describe what it was.

Mark, for his part, seemed oblivious. "Thanks, Susan. I mean, you know, this last two months, the attending job, Mrs. O'Brien, all that…thanks for being a great friend."

Susan smiled weakly, masking her true intentions, as Mark began walking again toward Admit.

"Think I can make the station in 38 minutes?" He asked, glancing at his watch.

"It'll be fine, Mark."

"Hmph, this'll be the night Amtrak goes on strike." Susan rolled her eyes and then saw him breeze past the door to stand in front of the board again.

"Hollison in Room Six, watch him, he's got hypocalcemia…" Susan now had to physically push him towards the exit as he continued to reel off patient rounds, "Girl in Four, orbital fracture from softball, that back pain in three, could be herniated d—"

* * *

"Mark!" Susan snapped firmly, finally getting him to stop. She smiled warmly and said, "I can read the board." 

Once again, Mark felt very stupid, trying micro-manage the place. Susan was more than capable of operating in his absence, he told himself.

Just then, for a fleeting moment, he caught her eyes and could swear she was trying to him something other than her ability to read the patient complaints. Like she was trying to reach _him_, not as simply another doctor, but…

STOP, Mark thought. _Train. Milwaukee. Loveless marriage which must be saved. Walk away._

"Bye", he said softly as he turned out into the downpour.

* * *

Susan watched him go, keeping the things she wanted so much to say inside. _Which is where they belong_, she mentally reminded herself. To the average passerby she would have seemed to be in a haze of some kind, simply loitering the hallway of a hospital. 

"You have to stop doing that." Doug Ross' voice made Susan jerk and catch her breath.

"Huh?"

"You heard me." Doug smiled ruefully as he walked towards the desk.

"What are you talking about?" Susan's shook her head, clearing out the cobwebs before scoffing, "Isn't there some 4-year old with an earache you need to be saving?"

"As a matter of fact, there is. I'm off."

Doug flipped a chart in his hands as he turned a corner, but shouted out, "You need to stop doing that."

Susan then watched him walk away, not with content but with confusion. Why couldn't things in her life simply make sense? And what the heck was Doug talking about?

* * *

**To Be Continued...**  



End file.
